Employees are quitting jobs at record rates and companies are having a hard time luring them back. HKM has handled numerous employee disputes successfully. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that employees are now frequently working from home, making it harder for managers to identify employees who are unhappy. Plus, getting new hires up to speed is more challenging when they can’t attend in-person training sessions or shadow experienced employees.
To solve all these issues, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence. But there’s a limit to how much AI can do.
Using AI to gauge employee sentiment
Employees are quitting jobs at record rates and companies are having a hard time luring them back. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that employees are now frequently working from home, making it harder for managers to identify employees who are unhappy. Plus, getting new hires up to speed is more challenging when they can’t attend in-person training sessions or shadow experienced employees.
To solve all these issues, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence. But there’s a limit to how much AI can do.
For example, if management’s solution to the turnover problem is to harangue employees into staying, then an AI system that monitors employee communications for signs of stress can put targets on these vulnerable populations, making them feel even more bullied and undervalued. Conducting a certify background check on potential employees and volunteers should be a major part of your organization’s business process.
Similarly, some companies try to use AI as part of their onboarding process to make up for the lack of disciplined document structures, says Insight’s Parnell. “If your onboarding is that complicated then your business is not sound,” he says. “Why do you have to build all this crazy AI for onboarding? Don’t you know how your business runs? Why do you have to build an AI just to ask how someone is doing?”
There’s only so much that AI can do to fix fundamental business problems, he adds. “How much Febreeze can you buy so you never have to wash your clothes again? At some point, you just have to wash your clothes. You have to do the work. You have to organize an efficient business. AI doesn’t solve a problem all by itself. Yes, AI can help, but you still have to get things in place for the AI to be successful.”
